Recent years have seen an increased demand for inexpensive apparel and the development of new and inexpensive components of construction and methods of construction of articles of apparel. In certain instances, there is a demand for apparel that is very inexpensive, and indeed disposable. New elastomeric materials and methods of incorporating them into portions of a garment have been developed to meet the desire to fit these types of garments to a human form. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,639,917 discloses the use of a strip of a heat recoverable elastomeric material to gather the cuff of a disposable hospital gown.
Disposable diapers have been marketed which include an elastic or stretch member in the longitudinal side edges of the disposable diaper to provide elasticity about the leg of the infant when the diaper is applied. Examples of such stretchable fitted diapers which have elastic members disposed in the longitudinal side edges of the diaper are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,860,003 and 4,050,462. By being able to elastically contract the longitudinal sides of the diaper, which are the leg and thigh encircling portion of the diaper once placed on an infant, you can compress the diaper about the leg of the infant. By virtue of this compressing, you reduce leakage at the leg of the infant and the tighter you make the fit, the more you tend to reduce leakage. However, if the fit is too tight you will cause irritation on this tender portion of the thigh, especially when the diaper is wet. There are also a number of patents which disclose means for making the waist encircling portion of a disposable diaper elastic for tighter fit of the diaper about the waist of the wearer, for example, as shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,995,637 and 3,995,640.
Disposable diapers usually comprise a facing and a backing layer which are substantially co-extensive and a somewhat smaller absorbent core or panel interposed between the facing and backing layer. The facing and backing layers are adhered together about their perimeter by hot melt adhesive or other adhesive material as is well known. In producing stretch or elastic diapers, an elastic member in its stretched or partially stretch state, is interposed between the facing and backing sheets along one or more edges of the diaper. The elastic member is adhered either to the facing and/or the backing sheets by adhesive or similar means and allowed to relax to produce elastic sections at the edges of the diaper. An example of a method for inserting elastic members in disposable diapers is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,081,301.
The incorporation of these elastic members into disposable diapers has increased both the cost of materials and construction of disposable diapers. With solid elastic members, it is necessary to adhere the side edges of the facing and backing sheets together, either directly or by their mutual attachment to the elastic member. Also, the use of the same adhesive throughout the process of incorporating the elastic members into the diaper to simplify its manufacture, require that the adhesive should be compatible with and have adhesive qualities with the elastic member, the plastic film backing material, and the soft textile facing material. In addition, when adhesively securing an unapertured elastic member into a disposable diaper, the adhesive chosen must be elastomeric or must be applied in a discontinuous pattern or the glue may make the diaper too stiff to gather. In contrast, the apertured elastic members of the present invention need not be adhered to either the facing or backing sheets, or are minimally adhered, and the adhesive used to secure the facing to the backing sheet need not be elastomeric and need be compatible with and have adhesive qualities with only the facing and backing sheets, and not the elastic member.